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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#901

Post by mytailorisrich »

ajross wrote: post #889
mytailorisrich wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is dominated by the US since WWII (having been invaded and occupied) in the same way Japan is. India is neither aligned nor allied with the US. They share interests particularly when it comes to containing China. But again India's interests on this have nothing to do with being a democracy or with China not being a democracy. The US are of course heavily involved in Brazil, including by supporting the militar…

> India is neither aligned nor allied with the US. They share interests Which is pretty much what I said, no? > particularly when it comes to containing China. But again India's interests on this have nothing to do with being a democracy or with China not being a democracy. But... it is. India can trust the US, to be blunt, not to shit in the bed of international commerce and trade. India can trust, on balance[1], th…

The problems between India and China have nothing to do with any of what you mention. It's about regional influence and, especially, border disputes actually created by the British, none of which would change if China suddenly became a democracy (in fact public opinion is quite nationalistic of both sides so beware).

In fact it's India that has played the "lemme outlaw your products" card against China recently.

On the other hand, India has very good relations with Russia. Russia supplies half of India's military equipment.

Let's not get into invading others as the US would certainly NOT look good, including or especially compared to China...

So, again, your view seems rather superficial and naive.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#902

Post by smsm42 »

lapcat wrote: post #571
smsm42 wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't force democracy on people. US - as a state and as private persons (Soros in particular) invested a lot into trying to build up democratic institutions (at least as they understood them) in Russia. It didn't work, and in part it didn't work because Russians seemed not to value the same things Americans value. Now, I am talking in generic, in broad strokes - which is never 100% true for any society, it's alwa…

> You can't force democracy on people. The Marshall Plan was economic recovery assistance, and it went to allies as well occupied territories. "The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total). The next highest contributions went to France (18%)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan Russia had already implemented its own elections after the fall of the USSR…

Yes, Russia briefly had free elections. Unfortunately, this did not result in a functioning democratic society - not because of lack of resources, but because of lack of desire to resist the oligarchical clique that managed to control, subvert and ultimately destroy the democracy. That wasn't the problem of the economy - in fact, Russian economy in a better shape now than it was in the 90s - it's a societal problem.

> This is true also in the United States

Sadly, true - but hopefully, it is still possible to avoid Russia's fate. Even though many institutions - including major part of technological leadership - are leading us to the same place, where expressing dissent is virtually impossible and any political action is only possible with approval from above - ironically under the slogans of "preserving democracy" and "fighting misinformation". We're not there yet, but the road has been built and we are marching along it. What works for us is we can see where this road ends, so maybe we can find in ourselves to stop and turn back before it's too late.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#903

Post by johnchristopher »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #256
johnchristopher wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the US's second attempt be in its history ?

The Articles of Confederation were a failure, so we tried a second time, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, the result of which was the Constitution under which the American government has been operating since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Convention_(Uni...

Thanks !

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#904

Post by mantas »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #856
mantas wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like Spain constitution doesn't have an article detailing exit process. Meanwhile USSR constitution had such article. Which was used by Lithuania when declaring independence.

> More like Spain constitution doesn't have an article detailing exit process. > Meanwhile USSR constitution had such article. Which was used by Lithuania when declaring independence. Source? I can't find any article detailing an exit process in the 1977 USSR constitution. Only at the beginning it says that the USSR is a voluntary union, but that's far from saying it details an exit process.

Article 72. Each Union Republic shall retain the right freely to secede from the USSR.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#905

Post by coldtea »

daminimal wrote: post #725
qwytw wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has improved significantly in the last 20 years. But the 90’s were as bad if not worse than in Russia in most places. And Russia was on an upwards trend until the 2010’s as well, e.g. if we look at average income levels the Baltic states only overtook Russia around ~2014. And if we only focus ex-USSR countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia seem more like the exceptions than the rule. Basically every single countr…

So, every country that did not do better did worse? Sounds about right.

You snark at it, but this tautology is a far better claim than the original ("all/most countries did better").

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#906

Post by coldtea »

testrun wrote: post #549
catominor wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DDR/BDR wealth/income divide is still significant, even today and in spite of the government's fairly aggressive taxes explicitly earmarked to develop the former DDR.

And if you compare current eastern Germany as opposed to the DDR, current inhabitants have it so much better. Another group that did not improve are the stans (Kazakstan and related countries).

>And if you compare current eastern Germany as opposed to the DDR, current inhabitants have it so much better

Depends on what you mean by better. For example they're much worse thrown in the rat race

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#907

Post by MichaelCollins »

agumonkey wrote: post #535
bigcat12345678 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isn't it cultural ? On the one hand, in the scale of brutality, every nation in history is at least 1 level below the Imperial Japan in WWII. On the other hand, after the decisive show of force, beaconed by the nuclear bomb, Japan realized that brutality is going to cause the doom of that nation. So they naturally bowed down. After that brutality is no longer necessary, like a beaten dog that would not really need…

It's one way to see that. But after such brutal events it's easy for a people to fall into despair or hate but Japan bounce back better than a lot of country. They rapidly absorbed and mastered electronics better than a lot of country. I always find it rare.

> They rapidly absorbed and mastered electronics better than a lot of country.

I believe this is something they started doing before/during the war. Specifically I've heard that they started reverse engineering and producing copies of allied radio equipment during the war.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#908

Post by nikaspran »

bearmode wrote: post #716
credit_guy wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s on Yeltsin, not on Gorbachev. What’s on Gorbachev is that all the Eastern European countries got to be free. I was born there. Life now is many times better than it was during Communism.

The majority of people who actually lived there before the fall of the soviet union disagree, actually.

This is completely false.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#909

Post by lapcat »

smsm42 wrote: post #902
lapcat wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't force democracy on people. The Marshall Plan was economic recovery assistance, and it went to allies as well occupied territories. "The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total). The next highest contributions went to France (18%)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan Russia had already implemented its own elections after the fall of the USSR…

Yes, Russia briefly had free elections. Unfortunately, this did not result in a functioning democratic society - not because of lack of resources, but because of lack of desire to resist the oligarchical clique that managed to control, subvert and ultimately destroy the democracy. That wasn't the problem of the economy - in fact, Russian economy in a better shape now than it was in the 90s - it's a societal problem.…

> Russian economy in a better shape now than it was in the 90s

It's too late, though. The 90s were a make-or-break time for democracy and freedom... and it broke. Initially there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the elimination of the Soviet Union, but ultimately democracy needs to produce results economically, and if it doesn't, then people will reject it.

> many institutions - including major part of technological leadership - are leading us to the same place

I find it amusing that we're talking about different groups. I have no love for big tech companies and would break them up, but I was actually talking about the people who want to establish a Christian theocracy in the United States, who recognize no separation of church and state, who refuse to accept the results of democratic elections, who are perfectly happy with minority rule via electoral college and gerrymandering, who refuse to even hold a vote on any Supreme Court nominee in the last year of one President's term but then ram through a Supreme Court nominee in the last year of the next President's term, who give dictatorial powers to Governors of their own party, but then take away those powers right after losing Gubernatorial elections, who have a laundry list of subjects they ban from discussion in schools via school boards and/or legislatures, etc.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#910

Post by flavius29663 »

INTPenis wrote: post #884
flavius29663 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it ended for 150 or so million people in Eastern Europe, that were freed from Russia.

I'm not trying to be contrarian here but I'd say their cold war just began when the soviet union disintegrated. Because now their new cold war was Russia exerting influence over them and manipulating their governance. Which is what Ukraine has suffered these last 30+ years.

what do you mean by "their" ? Because Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria managed to properly free themselves from Russia and are now solidly in the EU and NATO
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